Friday, July 29, 2016

A new Asian-based journal of speculative literature has emerged, the Mithila Review, which debuted in March, 2016 and is currently on its fourth issue. Each issue has contained a variety of short fiction, poetry, interviews and artworks with a very high standard of quality for such a young publication.

Among the poets in the premiere issue were two of my favorites, Shweta Narayan and Shveta Thakrar. I was also introduced to the poetic work of Rohan Chhetri, Shikha Malaviya, and Ajapa Sharma.

I have the highest confidence in them as they go forward that they'll be able to maintain this level of excellence. I applaud their ambition in bringing speculative literature forward in their communities. In the present age, we need a greater number of publications that can more effectively meet the needs of our communities, providing a space for diverse voices and visions.

Jane Wong‘s poems can be found in anthologies and journals such as Best American Poetry 2015, Best New Poets 2012, Pleiades, Third Coast, and others. A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Fine Arts Work Center, Squaw Valley, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Currently, she is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pacific Lutheran University. Along with three chapbooks, she is the author of the forthcoming book Overpour (Action Books, 2016).

Jade Cho is descended from Toisanese immigrants, and uses her poetry to explore diaspora, race, gender, power, privilege, and of course, ghosts. She maintains a blog at http://jadecho.tumblr.com/ and is a member of the Ghostlines Collective.

Recently, Dramafever has been making an effort to draw attention to a new Chinese drama they're streaming entitled Ice Fantasy. They've been positioning it as a question of what would have happened if Lord of the Rings had been written from an Asian perspective.

Here's the trailer where you can get a sense of what he's trying to do with this work. The trailer sees to cover many of the classic fantasy tropes, but we'll see if Guo Jingming is able to successfully bring some new dimensions to the fantasy field with a C-Drama adaptation. I suspect it won't go toe-to-toe with Game of Thrones, but it may well be a series that deserves to find an audience, given the epic traditions of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and so many others in China's past.

So, in the vein of The Last Samuri, 47 Ronin, and Beverly Hills Ninja, just to name a few, Hollywood has decided to greenlight a new Asian epic, The Great Wall with acclaimed director Zhang Yimou .It is shaping up to be the most expensive Chinese movie yet. The premise is that rather than having been built just to repel barbarians, there are giant monsters that have to be fought. And the great hero to do that is Matt Damon.

Initial footage suggests that Matt Damon will not be stepping aside to an incidental role like Raymond Burr in the original 1954 Godzilla. In Godzilla, it's possible to edit Burr's sections out and have a wonderfully coherent movie. Nor does it seem he will be getting a surprise demise like Steven Seagal in Executive Decision. So, to many of us, this already strikes us as problematic and tone-deaf in light of recent conversations on films like Dr. Strange, and Scarlet Johanssen in Ghost In The Shell, or the digital yellowface of Cloud Atlas.

Mind you, I enjoy a good many of Matt Damon's films, but I'm going to reserve judgement on this one.

Artistically, I find myself thinking that the bolder move would be for the film to look at all of this as an indictment of Damon/The West trying to kill a celestial being that historically embodies wisdom, knowledge, and the eternal, among other virtues. If such a creature is attacking, perhaps everyone might do well to consider it has a good reason to do so.

But then again, we also saw the American Godzilla remake where apparently the best solution to stop a monster created by the fury and horror of an atomic bomb is to try to kill it with an even bigger atomic weapon. And no one saw the flawed logic in that.

Expect this film to arrive around February, 2017. It ought to make a great Valentine's Day film.

One thing that interests me about the timing is that this is also the tenth anniversary since DC introduced the Great Ten, a group of Chinese superheroes for the DC universe during the beginning of the New 52 era.

The membership of the Great Ten included heroes named in a traditional manner such as Accomplished Perfect Physician,
August General in Iron, Celestial Archer, Ghost Fox Killer, Immortal Man-in-Darkness, Mother of Champions, Seven Deadly Brothers, Shaolin Robot, Socialist Red Guardsman, and Thundermind. They received their own one-shots in late 2009-2010, but have since largely fallen off the map in most of the DC titles.

I've always found them to be a bit of a problematic group, and I'm not certain I'd want to see them brought back in any prominent way because there was an awful lot that relied on perceived stereotypes and tropes of what Chinese characters are supposed to be like, and what the Chinese mindset is likely to be regarding superheroes native to their country.

As I watch the developments, I'm brought to mind recent discussions that have been found online that suggest Chinese folk traditions may have given us the first superhero team as we know it. While one might think that belongs to the ancient Geek myths, it's hard to argue that there were enough heroes and demigods in any one given story to call it a super team. In Jason and the Argonauts, for example, Hercules basically jumps ship before he's useful for much of anything.

But the argument for China goes back to the tale of the Ten Brothers (Shí Xiōngdì), also known as the Five Brothers, the Eight Brothers, the Nine Brothers, or the Seven Brothers, depending on who you talk to.

The most common versions of the story give each brother a distinctive skill or talent that's handy in at least one of the predicaments they face. One's capable of hearing from far away, another can fly, another is immensely wise and has a head as hard as iron. One is strong, another can tunnel beneath the ground, while another can stretch, and so on. But they can only succeed against their biggest antagonist by all of them working together. That definitely sounds familiar.

I think it definitely bears looking into, but our question must also be: Where can all of this go next, really? What new innovations to these stories are possible, and what will resonate most with the next generation?

"Between Worlds" started with a desire to curate an exhibition that responded to the Syrian refugee crisis. The exhibition has evolved and broadened to encompass an examination of the process of uprooting and transplantation in a human context. All of the artists selected have been affected directly or indirectly by displacement.

From the Arc Gallery:"Here in the San Francisco Bay Area our community, and particularly our artist community, has been enriched by cultural diversity. But those who arrive seeking a home, come to an uncomfortable realization that they are, in fact, not home, but between worlds. They look back and long for their homeland, but it is a place that no longer exists or would not welcome them back. Their adopted home, a place to start anew, makes them feel like outsiders, their knowledge, skills and education devalued. They find themselves longing for a place that may not exist. Safe haven is not the same as home. And, in today's world, a place of refuge is often neither safe nor welcoming."

Curated by Michael Yochum of Arc Gallery and Jack Fischer of Jack Fischer Gallery, this exhibition shares the collective experience of artists with San Francisco Bay Area ties, who reside in this space "Between Worlds" ….

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

In 2015, Angela Yuriko Smith was my mentee through the Horror Writers Association. I was delighted to learn this week that her short story 'Vanilla Rice' will be included in the new anthology Where The Stars Rise, part of the Laksa Anthology Series.

This speculative fiction anthology will contain "original stories to celebrate Asian diversity, featuring an Asian main character, Asian setting and/or some amount of Asian elements, by authors with an Asian ancestry." Based in Canada, the anthology is being edited by Lucas K. Law & Derwin Mak. A portion of Laksa Media’s net revenue from this anthology will go directly to support the nonprofit Kids Help Phone, Canada’s only free and anonymous 24/7 counselling and information service for young people between the ages of 5 and 20 in both English and French.

Since 1989, Kids Help Phone's trained, professional counsellors have been "listening to kids, often when no one else can or will. Their service supports young people as they build the skills and abilities they’ll need to improve their emotional health and well-being. In addition to an array of counselling options, they offer young people a wide range of online resources and they work tirelessly to share young people’s perspectives on a societal level – locally, nationally, and globally."

Guest Editor Shannon Connor Winward notes: For this issue of Eye to the Telescope, I am looking for more than thumps in the attic and pretty dead girls on a moonlit road. I want the unexpected, the unmeasured—I want poems that belie the limits of life and afterlife and what we think a ghost story should be. Give me phantoms and poltergeists, yes, bean-sidhe and È Guǐ, pathos or parody, space ship specters or transmigrating alien souls—I want any and all of it, as long the poem has meat on its bones. No restrictions on genre or form, though graphic violence or gore will be a hard sell. More than anything, I want to be moved.

Shannon Connor Winward is an American editor and author of literary and speculative writing. Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in Psuedopod: Artemis Rising, Gargoyle, Stupefying Stories, Spinetingler Magazine, Scigentasy, Flash Fiction Online, Plasma Frequency Magazine, PANK, and The Vestal Review, as well as in genre anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Her poetry was nominated for a Rhysling award, and appears widely in such venues as Analog, The Pedestal Magazine, Strange Horizons, Fairy Tale Magazine, Literary Mama, Hip Mama, Star*Line, Illumen, Ideomancer, and Dreamstreets.
A Semi-Finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest, Shannon was also runner-up for an emerging artist fellowship in literature by the Delaware Division of the Arts in 2014 and 2015. Her debut collection, UNDOING WINTER, was nominated for a 2015 Elgin award for best speculative poetry chapbook by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. It is available from the author, Amazon.com, or Finishing Line Press.
In between fiction, poetry, parenthood, and other madness, Shannon is also Madame Secretary for the Science Fiction Poetry Association, a staff writer for Pop Culture Madness, and a poetry editor for Devilfish Review.

In March, 2016, BasicNeeds facilitated the first ever counselling training for Buddhist monks in Pek district, Xiengkhouang province, a severely bombed province in Lao PDR. The training aimed to build the capacity of monks to provide psycho-social support to UXO victims and was conducted in partnership with Danish Church Aid (DCA), supported by the European Commission.

You can read more about this intriguing and vital project here. Given the shortage of trained psychologists in Laos, and also the traditional relationship of Lao monks to the community, I think it's an important and meaningful intersection of faith, activism, and health. I'm glad to see mental health being addressed in Laos, even as I also feel Buddhist monks being trained in the US would also be of benefit for many Lao communities.

Founded in 2000, BasicNeeds is a mental health focused international NGO with a global reach spanning 12 countries and growing. Their mission is to enable people with mental illness or epilepsy and their families to live and work successfully in their communities by combining health, socio-economic and community orientated solutions with changes in policy, practice and resource allocation.

I was a little bit surprised that Asian American tarot expert Benebell Wen wasn't part of this project. But making headlines recently, the Asian American Literary Review has been wildly successful with their latest kickstarter for an Asian American Tarot Deck. It's billed as a mental health project which will be included as part of their special issue Open in Emergency: A Special Issue on Asian American Mental Health, to be published in January 2017.

Cartomancy through tarot has a long tradition in Europe and the US, however, it's not one that we readily associate with the various Asian American communities, particularly for addressing mental health. More well-known methods include divination per the I Ching or other techniques. But it's not necessarily out of bounds, and the project has both literary and artistic merits to spark necessary conversations in our community.

The artists for this project are Monica Ong, Monica Ramos, Simi Kang, and Camille Chew.

The deck will break away from many of the traditional Major Arcana, while those that remain will be imagine with newer explanatory text that reflects the AAPI experience and concerns: Death (of course), the Scholar, the Migrant, the Lovers, the Mother, the Patient, the Foreigner, the Fool, the Ancestor, the Farmer, the Shopkeeper, the Adoptee, the Lecher, the Survivor, the Daughter, the Model Minority, the Refugee, the Prisoner, the Desecrated Temple, the Deportee, the Hangman, and the Devil.

The upcoming issue of the Asian American Literary Review is of interest for many of my readers because it will feature excerpts from Lao American playwright Saymoukda Vongsay's upcoming play Kung Fu Zombies vs. Shaman Warrior.
I think it will be very interesting to see how this project unfolds on a practical plane and metaphysically. In my experience, the Major Arcana of tarot are not to be modified or remarked upon lightly, although it is certainly not without extensive precedent.

And we DO live in a world where this is possible:

The Asian American Tarot project goes on until August 18th. A complete physical deck will be $35 or $25 for a digital edition, and $45 to get the AALR issue with the deck. There are a number of tiers for all budgets and interests, with three $1,000 bundles available at at the top level with all sorts of goodies including cookies. Check it out.

Well if you loved the characters of Jack Burton and Snake Plissken, both played by Kurt Russell in the classic John Carpenter films Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York, you're going to see what might happen if they both appeared in the same off-kilter dystopia.

In theory, this could be awesome or horrible, with the initial preview art already suggesting a return or involvement of Lo Pan and the Duke of New York, among other bad guys. There's a way to make it work, I think, but let's see what they really try. It's planned as a six-issue mini-series.

Last year marked the 65th anniversary since the very first Charlie Brown cartoon debuted, sparking a legacy that could scarcely have been imagined by his creator, Charles M. Schulz, as he started. By the time he passed away in 2000 in Santa Rosa, California, he created almost 18,000 strips and saw his characters appear in countless movies, books, greeting cards, games, toys, and artwork around the world. At least one scholar suggests he currently holds the distinction of the longest story told by one human being.

Charles M. Schulz broke ground by treating the children of Peanuts as emerging, complex people, grappling with issues of morality, interpersonal relationships, history and the often confusing world around them. This paved the way for later American comic strips and cartoon characters like Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, South Park, Bloom County and Boondocks, among others. By the end of the 20th century, almost all of the newspaper comics were inspired by, or responding to Peanuts.

As I look back on my life, I often feel like Charlie Brown followed me around for most of it. One of the very first books I chose for myself as a young boy was a church book sale’s used copy of the Peanuts Treasury from 1969. Over 40 years later, I still have my copy, albeit a little worn from years of re-reading. That so much of his material still holds up is a testament to Charles Schulz’s writing.

When I moved to Minnesota in the late 90s, the Twin Cities were just starting to celebrate the legacy of Charles M. Schulz in earnest. I found myself often stopping in O’Gara’s on Snelling Avenue where he used to live as a child. For a time, the Mall of America had an entire theme park in the center dedicated to the Peanuts gang, complete with a ride on the Kite-eating Tree.

St. Paul also began unveiling giant statues of many of the most beloved Peanuts characters including Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and Lucy. Even now, as I pass through the Lindbergh Terminal of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, I always smile to see Snoopy and Woodstock decked out in their classic aviator gear.

This last year has seen many months spent out in the Bay Area and Northern California, especially Santa Rosa, which is home to the Charles M. Schulz museum. Passing by so often, I’ve been reflecting on what lessons Lao artists might take from Peanuts. How do we create art that resonates in our culture, yet also are works the remainder of the world can relate to?

Could Charles M. Schulz have emerged from Laos? What would have been the barriers, how might he have expressed himself differently? Where might his stories have found a home next to the jataka tales, or next to beloved characters such as Sinxay or Xieng Mieng? How might we read Charlie Brown’s classic expression of exasperation, “Good Grief!"

Because of the widespread commercial nature of Peanuts in the present, some overlook the skill and the intriguing ideas Schulz consistently presented to readers in his daily strip. Charles M. Schulz had very moral positions, values that were clear throughout his strip, but he was never preachy about it.

Charlie Brown has been a figure who faces betrayals, let-downs, bouts of depression and an almost crippling lack of self-confidence, and he never quite fully overcomes them in his childhood, but you see that he gets by. Perhaps, as we make our own way through the world today, that’s the important message. That it’s possible to still be part of such a community and find moments to celebrate.

In one documentary, Charles M. Schulz discussed why Charlie Brown has to suffer so much: “Charlie Brown is, I think, a little bit like everyone. We all need reassurance that some people really do like us. But I guess Charlie Brown is mostly me… When I feel low, this is when I come home and really pour it on poor old Charlie Brown. This is when he really suffers the most: when I suffer the most.”

This intrigues me as I contemplate how a Lao Buddhist cartoonist might explore their world.

If Charles Schulz had been Lao, how might the Peanuts gang more fully have discussed the Vietnam War, and especially the challenge of UXO in Laos today?
At the time, newspapers were often very conservative and averse to angering too many readers, especially with a discussion of politics and controversial issues. Schulz worked within that. We can get a bit of a hint from this 1954 strip:

There will always be the “safe” Charlie Brown the world thinks is out there, but I would hope that many of us also remember there’s an aspect to Charlie Brown that was very engaged with modern concerns on conflict, struggle, and memory.

The African-American Peanuts character Franklin, for example, had a father serving in Vietnam. When he was originally introduced, Schulz had intended for Franklin to be just an everyday character, but some readers felt it was a political statement, and newspapers threatened to drop the strip over his inclusion. But over time, Franklin has been one of Charlie Brown’s best friends.

I’ve often said to my students: The purpose of the arts is to confront the chaos and uncertainty of the world with an unflinching eye, and yet not be paralyzed by it. You can see this clearly in Schulz’s work. I hope in the future we appraise Schulz’s artistic vision for its full complexity and thoughtfulness. As we create our own works, I feel we too should seek out the best lessons from the challenges Charlie Brown and many of the other great artists of the world embody.

Only those votes made by current members in good standing at the time of voting will be counted. If you are unsure of your status please don’t hesitate to contact the SPFA membership chair, Diane Severson at divadianepoetry@gmail.com.

The announcement email has also been sent to recently lapsed members (with issue 39.2 of Star*Line and the end of the 2nd quarter - 30 June 2016). If you wish to participate, please re-join soon!

The 2016 Dwarf Stars Anthology has been sent to all members in PDF format and the print edition will be following shortly. This is a slim volume of the best short-short genre poetry, as curated by Jeannine Hall Gailey and Leslie Wheeler. It will take you under 30 minutes to read. It will take you longer to decide which are the best, so pace yourselves!

Let’s have a record turn-out for participation among the members! Read and vote!

In the mid-2000s, I heard Yusef Komunyakaa read his poem "Facing It" for the very first time at the University of Minnesota. Drawing on his experience as a Vietnam veteran and the time he came face to face with the Vietnam War, this poem has touched me for well over a decade, and I'm often brought to tears revisiting it. "Facing It" comes from his 1988 collection Dien Cai Dau from Wesleyan University Press. It's a wonderful book.

Discussing this poem with him, in addition to his other work significantly changed my sense of poetry and its applicability to the Southeast Asian conflicts of the 20th century, and how we heal from those traumas.

This is one of many poems that reminds me constantly of the unheard voices among our Lao, Khmu, Tai Dam, Lu, Iu Mien, Hmong, Montagnards and other veterans after 40 years in the US, and how much more we have to go to bring those stories forward.
As we see the journey of our veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, I wonder where they, too, will find themselves among our future memorials and monuments, our words and our policies.

Here you can see his live reading of his poem:

But among the most moving readings I've ever seen of "Facing It" next to Komunyakaa's was that of fellow Vietnam veteran Michael Lythgoe for the Favorite Poem Project as he read it aloud in front of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.

As his own memories, his own grieving intermingles with Yusef's poetry, I'm reminded of why we MUST write, for the sake of those for whom there would be no words, otherwise.

One of my favorite spaces in Minnesota is the Open Book Center which has been the home to the Loft Literary Center, Graywolf Press, and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. It's where we convened the very first National Lao American Writers Summit in 2010, as well as the opening reception for my very first full-length book collection, On The Other Side Of The Eye back in 2007.

Opening in August is a new exhibit at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, It's Alive! which explores the many approaches that book, paper, and print artists use to express horror. They're taking their inspiration from B-movies to more contemporary mechanisms to address fear, and it's being convened in recognition of the Bicentennial of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus. The Bakken Museum has also assisted with this effort. It's going on until October 31st! Be sure to see it!

Here's a rebound edition of Frankenstein by Jana Pullman, to give you a taste of what you'll see:

Sahtu Press founder Nor Sanavongsay provides this year's convention art. He is a children's book writer and illustrator and the author of "A STICKY MESS" based on a classic Lao folktale. His illustrations appear in Strange Horizons, Little Laos on the Prairie, the Twin Cities Daily Planet, SatJaDham and other publications. He founded Sahtu Press because he believes every community deserves a chance to read stories that reflect their own experiences. You can see more of his art at https://instagram.com/artofnor. He also provided the art for Diversicon 22 and 23.

This year they honor the science fiction contributions of writers Jessica Amanda Salmonson and Naomi Kritzer. They're also recognizing the late Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy and Shirley Jackson. Officers and editors of the Science Fiction Poetry Association will also be recognizing the recent winners of the Rhysling Awards for poem of the year.

Jessica Amanda Salmonson is a recipient of the Lambda Award, World Fantasy Award, and ReaderCon Certificate. She is a novelist: Anthony Shriek, The Golden Naginata, The Swordswoman, etc; short story writer: The Deep Museum, A Silver Thread of Madness, The Complete Weird Epistles of Penelope Pettiweather, Ghost Hunter; and poet: The Death Sonnets, The Ghost Garden. She has edited a number of horror and/or fantasy anthologies (Heroic Visions, Tales by Moonlight) and single-author weird fiction collections such as of Marjorie Bowen, Julian Hawthorne, Sarah Orne Jewett, Vincent O’Sullivan, Mary Heaton Vorse, Fitz-James O’Brien, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and others. She lives with artist and potter Rhonda Boothe and their dogs, on a hillside in a Pacific Northwest military town overlooking Puget Sound from her crumbling spooky looking Edwardian manse.

Naomi Kritzer’s short stories have appeared in Asimov’s SF, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons and Tales of the Unanticipated. Her novels Fires of the Faithful, Turning the Storm, Freedom’s Gate, Freedom’s Apprentice and Freedom’s Sisters are available from Bantam. Since her last novel came out, she has written an urban fantasy novel about a Minneapolis woman who unexpectedly inherits the Ark of the Covenant; a children’s science fictional shipwreck novel; a children’s portal fantasy; and a YA novel set on a dystopic seastead. She has two e-book short story collections out: Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories, and Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories. Naomi lives in St. Paul with her husband and two daughters.

Orson Welles (1915-1985) directed the Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast of The War of the Worlds and the films Citizen Kane, The Stranger, Touch of Evil, and The Chimes at Midnight.

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was the author of The Lottery and Other Stories, The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Just An Ordinary Day, and Let me Tell You.

Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015) acted in the TV series Mission: Impossible and Star Trek, and directed the films Star Trek III, Star Trek IV, The Good Mother, and Three Men and a Baby. He wrote the memoirs I am not Spock and I am Spock.

Please email elginpdfs@gmail.com if you have not already received (or have misplaced/lost track of) the invitation to the Dropbox containing the nominated works for you to download for your perusal. Voting is open until 15 Sept, 2016. You may revise your vote until voting closes.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

This month, Uncanny Magazine is doing its annual kickstarter and are close to their minimal funding goal! As always, they have some ambitious and laudable hopes with some great content additions if they can get to the $18,700 mark, but they have stretch goals up to $33,000 they'd like to achieve for 2017.

Among the poets whose work is anticipated for the next year are Lisa M. Bradley, Roshani Chokshi, Theodora Goss, Nin Harris, Shveta Thakrar, and Jo Walton, who all have my support. Among literary magazines, they're exceptionally open to speculative work from Southeast Asian American writers in diaspora, which is still a rare thing and needs to be appreciated.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Peuo Tuy is a Cambodian spoken word poet and artist educator originally from Lowell, Massachusetts. Her self-published storytelling poetry book, "Khmer Girl," depicts personal atrocities about the Cambodian genocide, living in refugee camps, and navigating life as a dark-skinned southeast asian woman in America while experiencing self-hate, and searching for self-love and acceptance in our ever-evolving world. She has been featured at various venues on the east coast and was part of Urbintel's Inc., "HerStory" spoken word tour.

She is also part of a video project curated by The New School called "Futurographies" which travelled to Cambodia and France in spring 2016. She is currently working on a children's storybook.

She holds a Bachelors of Arts in Africana/Puerto Rican/Latino Studies. Peuo lives in New York City and is currently on a book tour in the east coast, midwest, and west coast. See more at: www.peuotuy.com

The culmination of the “Art of Healing” Long Beach tour will showcase youth participants’ stories from the “Digging Deep: On Writing Traumas and Brighter Futures” as well as other local Long Beach artists. The showcase will close out with a performance and Q and A with special guest artist, Peuo Tuy.

The purpose of this event is to create an opportunity for emerging and accomplished artists of Southeast Asian (Cambodian, Thai, Lao, Hmong, Vietnamese, etc) descent to share their work in a safe and supportive environment, and to expand people’s perception of “Asian America” that goes beyond East Asian narratives.

They aim to inspire audience members to own their story and share it through creative outlets as a way to educate others of our unique and intersecting identities.

The Manazar Gamboa Community Theater is located at: 1323 Gundry Ave, Long Beach, California

While I'm still processing all of her remarks, I think she raises worthwhile questions that have application in our own efforts to encourage Lao American poetry. She remarks "At the deepest level of Theravada Buddhist practice, where you are working at letting go of attachment to death and rebirth, I find that the modern process of artistic creation that is usually so inextricably linked to the self and the identity of the creator does not complement the practice."

I'm not certain how many of our Lao American writers, particularly our emerging writers give that matter much consideration, but it would be interesting if that is something that's subconsciously holding back many in our community.

For her: "A writer who is embedded in the real Theravada practice would be driven less by the artistic ego and more by the forces of equanimity, kindness, and generosity and will be able to create a space to nurture and encourage others’ writing and growth.”
This is something that I might find resonance with in my own work and the work of my fellow writers in the Lao American Writers Summit, and seems to fall in line with a growing tendency to advise one another to work with others in the process of telling our various stories, to see writing a community process.

Modernity often convinces us to emulate the stereotype of Hemmingway or other rugged individualists who we're taught hammered it all out on their own in solitude. But in real life, most plays, movies, TV shows, comic books, and so many other things are created in a community or small group process, and I think Lao writers can't be shy about pursuing this route, even in our poetry.

There are many interesting ideas that she puts forward, but near the end her remarks on Sri Lankan history make me think of parallels in the Lao experience, as well: “In Sri Lanka, we have been fighting wars for centuries over what conditions us: national, ethnic, religious, and social identities. It would be interesting if writers could in some way incorporate the concepts of anicca [impermanence] and anatta [no-self] into their work. The challenge, however, is to not sound didactic! I think many of our filmmakers have been maestros at incorporating a very Buddhist ethos in their work. I think it is harder to achieve that ethos verbally, without sounding ‘Buddhist.’ ”
I consider her remarks also through the lens of a speculative poet, wondering wherein a Buddhist approach to science fiction, fantasy and horror ties into everything, but that may well be a conversation for a different point. In the meantime, be sure to give the whole interview a read and see what you think.

Dasjati in a sense goes beyond Wagner's synthesis of theatre, music and poetry because it adds a fourth element to the mix, that of dance. Choreographer Puwarade Wongatichat adds colours of Thai dance, contemporary dance and ballet.

This of course makes me quite curious to pose the question to our Lao choreographers and artists what might we do to respond to the integration of dance with theatre, music, and poetry, and what other art forms might well be essential to such works. Among the Lao American artists i would think particularly poised to take on the question are Saymoukda Douangphouxay Vongsay, the Kinnaly Dance Troupe, the Royal Lao Classical Dancers of Tennessee, the Natassin Dance Troop of Iowa, and Phayvanh Leukhamhan given their prior work. But we'll see in the years ahead where it all takes us!

The Lao language, like any language is constantly growing and adapting. As we come into new ideas, we need new terms, either by repurposing existing language or inventing something that reasonably follows the established precedents.

Lao American speculative literature is just starting to take off so our question becomes, what terms will we use as our preferred terms in fantasy, science fiction, horror, and works of a similar nature?

Here are a few initial words for science fiction that may come in handy. Alternate spellings and romanization are possible:

Players who select the Indian character of Symmetra can appear as a re-imagined and arguably sexualized aspect of the Hindu goddess, Devi. Traditionally, Devi has many forms, including Kali, a goddess of death and demon-slaying, and the costume features elements that visually reference that form.

Universal Society of Hinduism's Rajan Zed has called upon Activision to remove the skin saying "that reimagining Hindu scriptures, symbols, concepts and deities for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it created confusion. Controlling and manipulating Devi with a joystick/ button/ keyboard/ mouse was denigration. Devi was meant to be worshipped in temples and home shrines and not to be reduced to just a "character" in a video game to be used in combat in the virtual battleground."

He argues that it “trivialized Hinduism’s highly revered goddesses.”

In a different article, Gadgets 360 noted that previously "Zed had taken offence to Atlus' depiction of Krishna in Japanese role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei IV Final. In 2012 he wanted three characters removed from multiplayer online battle arena (moba) game Smite - Agni, Kali, and Vamana. The game now features seven playable characters from Hinduism. And in 2009 he called on Sony to remove Hanuman: Boy Warrior for the PS2, from the shelves as well."

Much of the matter is not surprisingly being dismissed by other Hindus and the mainstream gaming community. But I'm willing to say that it presents a question of cultural privilege in gaming development. Would we respond as casually if it had been Jesus or one of the apostles, or an Old Testament heroine treated in this way? Or perhaps a figure from American history presented like "Sexy Betsy Ross."

Joseph Campbell once famously noted that "One man's mythology is another man's religion." I don't think it harms the world much to try to be reasonably sensitive to the faiths and beliefs of others, in the chance that perhaps they have indeed found "the Truth" as the Cosmos deems fit to reveal it to them. I don't think constantly walking on eggshells is required, however.

Life in the modern world affords us the liberty to explore ideas. We have a responsibility to push those ideas to the furthest limits of our imagination. Sometimes we'll find boundaries of good taste, and sometimes we'll have artists who persist in crossing over into the realms of bad taste, Preferably, the market and public opinion take over, in that situation.

For a working policy, I would encourage developers, artists, and others to focus on being open-minded and try our best not be a jerk about how we present characters from cultures not immediately our own.

To move into the future, there has to be a space for modern myth-making, be it in poetry, novels, video games, cinema, photography, etc. Opportunities are need for artists in every culture, every generation to explore for themselves what the power and meaning of such figures can be. Sometimes they'll find something that breaks it wide open, and sometimes not.

This case with Overwatch attracts my attention, however, because South Asian mythology informs many elements of Lao mythology, with common characters such as the Nyak (Rakshasas), Nak (Naga), Kinnaly, and the Vanon (Vanara) such as Hanuman, the white monkey warrior.

But over the centuries, our understanding of Hanuman and these other figures evolved, adapted to reflect Lao values and more Southeast Asian outlooks. For example, in Indian tradition, Hanuman is regarded for his fierce warrior skills and loyalty. In Laos he's somewhat more comical, almost a cross between Pepe Le Pew and Rambo as he finds time for romance in the middle of a massive war between demonic giants, serpent deities and humans.

In India, he's considered a god and is worshipped. In Laos, he's revered and respected, but treated closer to a demi-god like Hercules. I've never encountered a shrine in the Lao community where people actively make offerings to him. Perhaps in centuries to come that will change, or perhaps not.

But the question we now face is an interesting one: Whose cultural view of Hanuman ought to take precedent in matters such as the one Overwatch raises. Hanuman in a video game like Street Fighter would not likely be considered offensive to a Lao person. But in India, there are some who would consider it deeply taboo.

Constructively speaking, how might we proceed where our own culture can explore Hanuman as we see fit, while also respecting the opinions of other cultures? I don't think there will be one particular answer that applies in all circumstances, but it's interesting to consider.

About Me

An award-winning Laotian American writer, I work actively to support Laotian, Hmong and Southeast Asian American artists. I am recognized by the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts. I also served as a consulting contractor with the Minnesota History Center, the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans and the Minnesota Humanities Commission. I am an active professional member of the Horror Writer Association and president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

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